3D fabbers: don’t let the DMCA stifle an innovative future

Physical objects are going digital, thanks to 3D scanners and printers. But …

Last week, while unloading my dishwasher, I had a “eureka!” moment in which I suddenly understood why the machine had not been adequately cleaning up the cups and baby bottles in the upper rack: a small rubber tube had split open, and much of the water meant for the upper rack was spilling over the plates below instead.

In the dark ages before the Internet, this might have meant an expensive house call from an appliance repair company. Today, it means going to the manufacturer's website, digging up the complete parts list for a decade-old appliance, and then placing an online order for the small rubber part, which will arrive in a box on your doorstep within the week. Magical!

For now, anyway. In the future, even this approach will seem unbearably primitive. What if I could simply download a three-dimensional design file for the part I needed from the Internet and then print it immediately on my household 3D printer? Thirty minutes later my dishwasher could be back in business with a good-as-new plastic replacement part, though I could potentially be on the hook for a huge damage award. That's because, as the physical world gets digitized, it will face all the same intellectual property issues that have so far affected digital content like music and movies.

As 3D scanners and 3D printers plunge in cost, designers and manufacturers are going to get worried. Once they get worried, they go either to courts or to Congress. When this happened in the 1990s with digital media, the result was the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and those on the cutting edge of home three-dimensional fabrication want to make sure that they're ready this time when a similar full-court press tries to convince Congress to increase intellectual property protection in the US.

“Just as with the printing press, the copy machine, and the personal computer before it, some people will see 3D printing as a disruptive threat,” says a new report (PDF) out today from the group Public Knowledge. “Similarly, just as with the printing press, the copy machine, and the personal computer, some people will see 3D printing is a groundbreaking tool to spread creativity and knowledge. It is critical that those who fear not stop those who are inspired.”

"If the 3D printing community waits until that day to organize, it will be too late."

Meet the RepRap

The community is already preparing for the battle. Dr. Adrian Bowyer of the UK was the brains behind the RepRap, the "Replicating Rapid Prototyper" that can make many of the key parts needed to build another RepRap. Before devices like RepRap, commercial 3D printers cost upwards (sometimes far upwards) of $250,000.

"I changed that," says Bowyer. With the six-year-old RepRap, hackers can build a basic 3D printer for a few hundred dollars. The project has been a success, spawning RepRap hobbyist groups around the world, and there are more RepRaps in operation now than all commercial 3D printers sold over the last three decades.

The first design, called Darwin, was top-heavy and could be tricky to build. A simplified second-generation RepRap called Mendel appeared last year. (See it in the video below.)

Introduction to the Mendel RepRap machine

Bowyer is fully aware of the fact that his devices, by democratizing 3D printing, have "radical implications for intellectual property law," and he has delved into the subject of IP law as a result of his creation's success.

Different laws in different parts of the world will have real effects on 3D printing hobbyists as the movement grows. Say your kid's birthday is coming up, so you visit a site like Thingiverse, where people upload and alter 3D designs for these printers. You download a frictionless UFO toy file, you customize it with little Johnny's name, you print it out in plastic and color it, and you give it to little Johnny for his birthday.

Fine—unless the UFO design was made from a patented toy. In Europe, Bowyer says that patent law allows people to privately copy patented devices, so long as they don't try to sell it. But in the US, that's not the case, and patent law has no "fair use" exemptions.

"Big Toy" is unlikely to kick down your door searching for patent infringement, but companies are much more likely to eventually file suit against sites like Thingiverse if users start uploading patented designs. And one can only imagine what the sites that don't even care about legality will look like.

The frictionless UFO in action

In a paper published earlier this year, Bowyer illustrates just how broad these questions will be: "Tempting as it may be to copy and use a picture of a well-known cartoon character, the resulting cards would very likely be an infringement of the copyright and perhaps trade marks owned by the relevant rights holder. But what if someone uses a printer capable of producing a mobile phone cover bearing such an image? Or reproducing a distinctively-styled piece of kitchenware? What about printing out a spare wing-mirror mount for your car? Do these uses infringe IP rights?"

Companies have little to worry about so far from projects like RepRap, which prints in plastic that can cost $10 per kilogram. But Bowyer is already at work on a scheme to let his RepRaps use "home-recycled plastic," and he sees a day not far off where rightsholders try to use DRM to lock down design files and demand that machines like RepRap somehow respect rightsholder restrictions.

The new new thing

Tiffany Rad works with a hackerspace lab in Herndon, Virginia, which has two commercial 3D printers—one in monochrome and one in color. While the ABS plastic products coming off a RepRap can take half an hour to make and can be a bit crude, the full-color commercial 3D printers are marvels to behold (see video below).

Commercial 3D printing, in color

Couple such a 3D printer with a 3D scanner and you've got all the tools you need to do some serious copying of industrial designs. Rad sees this as a type of format shifting, and she notes that most patents cover only the "utility" of an object, not its design. Copying the shape of a particularly cool lamp stand, for instance, would probably not get you into trouble; replicating the way a patented device functions (and commercial 3D printers can already do things like produce working ball bearing joints) and you could be in real trouble.

"I haven't seen a great deal of litigation," says Rad, but she too worries about the issues and doesn't want to be caught unprepared as rightsholders push the courts and Congress to extend protections to offer great protection to designs. Such design protections do exist—the DMCA itself included the Vessel Hull Design Protection Act for boats—and there has sometimes been talk of extending design protections to things like fashion.

Public Knowledge attorney Michael Weinberg admits he "doesn't have an easy answer" about how the law should answer all of these emerging questions, but he suggests that much will depend on the analogies that win out. Is a 3D CAD file more like a blueprint, which has limited copyright protection, or more like a photograph, which has tremendous protection, even from derivative works, the moment it's taken?

Back in 2007, when we covered the Fab@Home 3D printer project out of Cornell University (also on its second model now), we wrapped up the piece by pondering just what the democratization of objects might mean for the world: "If it can do for plastic products what cheap digital tools have done for music and film creators, then the future will be a world filled with very cool toys, gadgets, and action figures. It will also be a future in which creative inventors in developing nations, the kind of people who would never have had access to fabrication plants, can suddenly turn their ideas in reality. It will be a future in which the real world becomes a set of digital downloads, and it's not too great a stretch to imagine that iTunes one day will sell 3D models alongside its other digital goodies."

That's the future that Public Knowledge wants to preserve, but its "access to knowledge" approach is sure to run into complaints from IP rightsholders, just as it does today over digital media issues. Still, when that happens, the 3D fabbers want to be prepared—and they want to make sure that Congress actually understands the tech in question and its potential before it hears the horror stories about piracy.

"The community must work to educate policy makers and the public about the benefit of widespread access," Weinberg concludes in his report. "That way, when legacy industries portray 3D printing as a hobby for pirates and scofflaws, their claims will fall on ears too wise to destroy the new new thing."

There is a whole lot more to manufacturing than plastic that can be rapid prototyped....Until we get the matter replicator (ie. star trek) I don't think many companies will be worried. If your product is a simple plastic part it should be easy to undercut based on price due to volume manufacturing...if it is a distinctive image based piece of plastic, like a mickey mouse head, then they are already protected by copyright.

Sounds cool - to bad all video content is blocked where I am right now so it's blocks of text separated by huge white spaces. Ars, please consider static image placeholders to supplement video for us non-video-able souls.

We've got a 3D printer. Its ungodly expensive until you compare to the cost of overnighting a part you really need from Europe. Now if only I wasn't so awful at solidworks

Yeah, and Rad said that the supplies will kill you--one helping of the molding material can cost $1000 and last for only a few weeks. RepRap is obviously much cheaper than this, but its output if far more limited, too.

We've got a 3D printer. Its ungodly expensive until you compare to the cost of overnighting a part you really need from Europe. Now if only I wasn't so awful at solidworks

Yeah, and Rad said that the supplies will kill you--one helping of the molding material can cost $1000 and last for only a few weeks. RepRap is obviously much cheaper than this, but its output if far more limited, too.

The key to the future would be to use a material is is easily recyclable (melting it on the stove top for example).

"The nanotechnology that generates wealth for the Victorian, Nipponese and Hindustani phyles provides software-generated goods fed through a strictly proprietary "feed" line that runs from their central generators into the homes of customers. The three great phyles are engaged in a competition to have their feeds grab the biggest market share in Coastal China. While several software goods from the feed are provided free of charge, the real wealth to be made from this software remains per unit software purchases. The principles of intellectual property being sacrosanct in the Victorian phyle, whose wealth derives from it, the violation of intellectual property law gets Hackworth severely condemned and forced into military service to earn back his reputation.

The most disruptive medium for rep-rap to work in, IMO, would be wax. Because then with only a mediocrum of additional equipment and effort, you could do lost-wax castings of anything in metal. Suddenly those ball bearings and gear patterns are much more valuable to the small time builder.

What? I don't even have a househould printer anymore, say nothing of 3D. Maybe when we have replicators built into our wall like in star trek, but honestly I don't see the masses wanting to be fabbing in their homes.

It seems to me 3D items are covered by the same copyright laws as 2D items. I guess concerns that Congress might try and create some additional restrictions is warranted. I think it is unlikely to get through Congress, but vigilence is still worthwhile.

As for patents, I'm not aware of any statuatory penalties for patent infringement. I could be wrong, but I think they would have to sue for actual damages, which wouldn't be worth it in copying relatively simple items for personal use. An explicit exception for non-commercial, personal use might be nice, but I'm not aware of anyone being harmed for the lack of it.

The most disruptive medium for rep-rap to work in, IMO, would be wax. Because then with only a mediocrum of additional equipment and effort, you could do lost-wax castings of anything in metal. Suddenly those ball bearings and gear patterns are much more valuable to the small time builder.

The hard part isn't making the pattern...it is smelting, refining, and pouring molten steel! You can't exactly melt steel at home, and that isn't going to change anytime soon.

Even if you assume that you can get a cast steel gear, you now have machine it to get a proper surface finish, check for material flaws, and likely heat treat it in some way. Rapid prototyping doesn't help with any of that.

Rapid prototyping is really limited in what you can actually make. Using it for the intended purpose, prototyping to check fit etc. is wonderful, and I had done that more than a decade ago...but for finished products it just isn't versatile enough.

The most disruptive medium for rep-rap to work in, IMO, would be wax. Because then with only a mediocrum of additional equipment and effort, you could do lost-wax castings of anything in metal. Suddenly those ball bearings and gear patterns are much more valuable to the small time builder.

How about a $100 CNC mill instead? ($100 only includes the hardware, so you still need a controller to run the motors, etc, so probably more like $200 for the whole package)

I can't find a link, but I know I ran across a sub-project on a reprap blog where the guy was working on a plastic extruder that could take ground ABS and extrude the plastic in a form the reprap needed, which means you could recover some large percentage of prototypes (and scaffolding), directly reducing the price of the raw material.

I call dibs on the circle... no wait... the triangle... no... the straight line... no wait... on a single point... yeah... that's the ticket... anyone who wants to make an object based on a point (or points) needs to pay me a royalty... hehehe

What? I don't even have a househould printer anymore, say nothing of 3D. Maybe when we have replicators built into our wall like in star trek, but honestly I don't see the masses wanting to be fabbing in their homes.

Oh ye of little imagination. Just because you've managed to transcend the need for paper, there are still lots of people that have home printers. Beside that, even if you *don't* need paper printers anymore for the likes of documents, maps, or photos (and seriously, who doesn't have one at least for photos?! You still use Polaroids, don't you?), the uses of a 3D printer are almost limitless--so long as they can be made out of plastic, it seems. This is seriously cool stuff! Egads, man, think of the applications!

Industrial designs, or "design patents" as they're known in the US (as opposed to the better known "utility patents"), already exist for the protection of decorative elements that do not contribute to the function of a device. Other protections, such as a distinguishing guise* in trade-mark law, provide protection for distinctive elements that don't contribute to the function of the device and distinguishes it from other devices in the market.

The point is, current IP laws already protect 3D designs adequately, and there SHOULD be no need to go crying to Congress for additional IP protection.

* Distinguishing guise is a creature of Canadian trade-mark law; hopefully a US lawyer can chime in with the US equivalent, if any.

Sadly enough, the primary use I can thing of this would be to pirate miniatures for RPGs and war games.

Cheap miniatures was my first thought too. Can you imagine the stink Games Workshop will kick up if this starts happening? There will be patents, lawsuits, trademarks and lawyers flying all over the place. I don't know of any other company that hates their fans as much as GW does. The gods only know the fuss mini-printing will start.

The hard part isn't making the pattern...it is smelting, refining, and pouring molten steel! You can't exactly melt steel at home, and that isn't going to change anytime soon.

Even if you assume that you can get a cast steel gear, you now have machine it to get a proper surface finish, check for material flaws, and likely heat treat it in some way. Rapid prototyping doesn't help with any of that.

Rapid prototyping is really limited in what you can actually make. Using it for the intended purpose, prototyping to check fit etc. is wonderful, and I had done that more than a decade ago...but for finished products it just isn't versatile enough.

Not just steel, but brass, bronze, tin, copper, gold, silver... I can imagine quite the nice little etsy store making custom doorknobs and such from such a process.

Plus, not all machines require such tight tolerances as what you're inferring. The industrial revolution was started by blacksmiths, not CNC machines (plus, rep-rap can reproduce a vast majority of itself in plastic right now; imagine how much more would be possible with lost wax casting).

We're moving out of the realm of rapid prototyping, and into the realm of simply printing end products. Laser sintering takes us a good step in that direction, but it's currently cost prohibitive due to the high level of technology required. Lost wax casting? Wax is cheap, plaster is cheap and melting down tin/pewter/etc requires a crucifiable which can be made fairly inexpensively.

kevin.granade wrote:

How about a $100 CNC mill instead? ($100 only includes the hardware, so you still need a controller to run the motors, etc, so probably more like $200 for the whole package)

The combination of the two would be devastatingly effective - it's essentially how they make most high precision parts these days. Cast the raw form, use the CNC machine to fine tune its features.

What? I don't even have a househould printer anymore, say nothing of 3D. Maybe when we have replicators built into our wall like in star trek, but honestly I don't see the masses wanting to be fabbing in their homes.

OK, fine. Let's skip ahead a bit to where a commercial version of these things is an economical method of fabrication, and you can get any coloring, a selection of materials, and a variety of finishes.

Imagine going to FabMart.com (or CafePress.com, perhaps) and choosing your favorite among 200,000 different designs for plates, 7,000 different kinds of you-assemble-it lamps, and a nigh-infinite number of action figures and RPG minis, each of which has a varying amount of royalty paid to the person or design firm that came up with it. Or perhaps FabMart will have local outlets where you pick up your purchases -- no inventory necessary other than raw materials. Your local "hemp products" store could even have a wind-powered hippie ecofabricator using (organically grown!) recyclable bioplastics made from locally sourced biomass to prevent all the ecological ills of transporting products all over the world.

How much of this is possible? Heck if I know. But long-term, there's no reason this is just a hacker toy.

Over the past few years I've gone to all of the bay area Maker Faires. I've watched the MakerBot advance: ( http://www.makerbot.com/ ) from a sort of working contraption to a nifty device that is almost ready for primetime (it is still a little tinkery in spots and has some rough edges here and there). At the faires I've spoken with Bre Pettis (owner/designer) who is a really great guy. His enthusiasm is infectious making it easy to be excited for his company. If you are interested in this stuff you might take a look at the MakerBot.

OK, fine. Let's skip ahead a bit to where a commercial version of these things is an economical method of fabrication, and you can get any coloring, a selection of materials, and a variety of finishes.

Imagine going to FabMart.com (or CafePress.com, perhaps) and choosing your favorite among 200,000 different designs for plates, 7,000 different kinds of you-assemble-it lamps, and a nigh-infinite number of action figures and RPG minis, each of which has a varying amount of royalty paid to the person or design firm that came up with it. Or perhaps FabMart will have local outlets where you pick up your purchases -- no inventory necessary other than raw materials. Your local "hemp products" store could even have a wind-powered hippie ecofabricator using (organically grown!) recyclable bioplastics made from locally sourced biomass to prevent all the ecological ills of transporting products all over the world.

How much of this is possible? Heck if I know. But long-term, there's no reason this is just a hacker toy.

A rep-rap style 3d printer is just a cartesian bot with a plastic extruder as a toolhead. The extruder is simple, and easily replaced, or swapped out for a different toolhead, such as something like a dremel.

Thus, if you build something like this, you've already got both a CNC mill and a 3D printer.

Furthermore, as someone who works in plastics manufacturing, making the plastic "wire" that a reprap prints with is trivially easy. You don't need to melt plastic on a stove or whatever, just grind up scrap plastic (keeping in mind different types will generally need to be kept separate) then run it through a simple extruder with a heated die... which is pretty much *exactly* the same toolhead as on the rep-rap extruder. Feed the plastic through a heated meat grinder then a brass adapter into a small hole the diameter of the wire you need and run a motorized device to pull the resulting plastic "wire" through a bath of water and your done.

The machinery that does this on a large-scale manufacturing level is very simple, and could very easily be reproduced reasonably effectively at home.